Shane Dowling column: GAAGO farce has gone too far
You’ll always have noise that will come and go with certain issues but, in this instance, the volume should be pumped up until something is done.
There's a real feeling of deja vu surrounding the hurling Championship as it cranks up again this year.
It’s only 12 months since the GAAGO row first ignited and here we are again as, for the second weekend in succession, no hurling game will be shown free-to-air.
Last year, Donal Og Cusack let RTE have it on the Sunday Game in relation to their role in GAAGO and got quite the reaction.
READ MORE: GAAGO blasted as fans slam lack of hurling fixtures on free-to-air TV
I thought that he was dead right and rang him the next morning to tell him so. He is meticulous in how he gets his point across and, love him or hate him, he’s box office.
When I started on Sunday Game, I didn’t know anybody or anything about the place. I worked with him on my first few shows and he was extremely kind to me.
When we’re on together, we love bouncing off each other, both of us dogmatic in terms of how we get our point across.
I can almost imagine him standing in front of the mirror at home, rehearsing his act for later in the evening before delivering it expertly. I know that he called Joanne Cantwell the morning after their head to head on the Tailteann Cup to pore over all the reaction that it had received and make sure there was no residue between them, which there wasn’t.
Underneath it all, he’s a gentleman but when it comes to hurling, he’s obsessed. And last year, he didn’t care if it got him into trouble - he just went to town on GAAGO.
The problem is, however, that it seems to have fallen on deaf ears.
This is an issue that was subsequently debated by an Oireachtas committee but none of this has had the desired effect.
Of course, there is a great need for streaming services, be it GAAGO, Clubber or TG4’s YouTube channel; they are all wonderful services.
And, like most, I have no problem paying a fee to watch a game. But that’s not where the problem lies.
We all know how, depending on where you live, there will be issues with wifi when you sit down to watch a game online. It’s far more cumbersome than simply turning on your TV, especially for older generations.
Failing that, it can be difficult to find a pub showing a game that’s being streamed.
What baffles me the most of how games are chosen in advance, when the importance of the fixture has yet to be determined.
Last weekend, the Wexford-Galway and Waterford-Tipperary games should have been free-to-air.
Tomorrow evening, Cork-Limerick, a crucial game in the Munster Championship that is heading towards a sellout, should be free-to-air. It’s all wrong.
You’ll always have noise that will come and go with certain issues but, in this instance, the volume should be pumped up until something is done.
People should be able to sit down in their home, turn on the television and watch our national sport. Granted, there will be exceptions as every game cannot be shown free-to-air and that’s where streaming has a vital role to play.
But not at the expense of our blue chip fixtures. People shouldn’t have to be scrambling to tune into the action in Cork tomorrow evening, no more than Walsh Park and Wexford Park last weekend.
Cork must give their supporters something to latch on to
It's all duck or no dinner for Cork this weekend.
Tipperary’s result against Waterford may have given them a gee up but they need to summon all the motivation from within.
Sometimes there’s no need to go digging too deep after a traumatic defeat. Cork just need a few small improvements from the Clare game; tightening up at the back is one of them.
But they still scored 3-24, so they’re obviously doing a lot right.
The last time Limerick played them at the Pairc, in the opening round of last year’s League, they scored a narrow victory and received an ovation coming off the field.
I felt it was a bit much at the time for a League game in February, it was only two points on the board, but, on reflection I think the crowd had actually warmed to the manner in which they won the game after coming out swinging having been on the rack in the first half.
And that’s exactly what they must bring tomorrow. If Cork are to go out, they must go out on their shields.
Antrim must seize golden opportunity
I said here a few weeks ago that I never bought into suggestions that a Kilkenny-Galway Leinster final was a foregone conclusion.
I don’t believe that Galway are where they should be and wasn’t surprised that Wexford beat them, a result that has thrown the Leinster Championship wide open.
For me, Antrim have to go down to Parnell Park tomorrow expecting and even demanding a win. They got great credit for beating Wexford but backing it up would be an even bigger statement from them.
Dublin haven’t been good all year and scraped a draw against Wexford before just getting past Carlow. They’re there for the taking.
Better to give the refs a hand than a rollicking
Referees have been a hot topic this week on the back of errors last weekend.
And that heaps more pressure on them.
It’s easy to say that they should be moved out and another batch moved in, but where are the alternatives? The reality is, they’re just not there.
So we should be trying to support the ones we have as much as we possibly can.
Take Kyle Hayes’s disallowed goal in the Limerick-Tipperary game. He was incorrectly deemed to have picked the ball off the ground, something that I wouldn’t be critical of Liam Gordon of because it was an honest mistake, which we all make.
But, within 15 seconds, a TV replay had shown that the goal was legitimate. Could a match official with a monitor not get the word down to Liam to allow the goal and the game moves on quickly? Technology could be used for critical calls, like goals and red cards, for a start.
That particular incident won’t have any impact on how the Championship plays out, but just wait until a big game like an All-Ireland final is decided due to human error.
John ‘Bubbles’ O’Dwyer made a great point during the week that referees should talk to players and managers, rather than this headmaster mentality that many of them bring onto the field with them.
I’m sure if James Owens apologised to Barry Hogan and Stephen Bennett last Saturday and respectfully ordered a retake of the penalty he would have come out of it with far more credit than has been the case.
We hear it so often that a referee never changes his mind. Well maybe they should from time to time.
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